East African electricity institutions are working to update the region’s power-system master plan, a technical exercise with major implications for future transmission investment, energy security and cross-border electricity trade.
The African Development Bank said on 9 October 2026 that it had supported a workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, on 29–30 September to advance the Eastern Africa Power Pool’s Regional Power System Master Plan. The work is being undertaken with the African Union Development Agency–NEPAD and financed through technical assistance supported by the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.
Regional power planning matters because electricity systems do not stop at national borders. Countries can have different patterns of demand, generation resources and exposure to drought or fuel-price shocks. Interconnections can help move power from places with available supply to markets experiencing shortages, provided the transmission networks, operating rules and commercial arrangements function.
A master plan is not itself a construction contract. Its value lies in establishing a shared assessment of future demand, potential generation and the transmission corridors needed to connect them. Without credible planning, infrastructure investments can be poorly sequenced, leaving expensive assets underused or demand centres underserved.
The region’s utilities and regulators must also coordinate on technical standards, system reliability, tariffs and payment security. A transmission line may physically connect two systems, but sustainable power trading requires confidence that electricity will be delivered, measured and paid for under enforceable agreements.
For development financiers, regional planning can make project pipelines more coherent. It may help distinguish high-priority interconnectors from projects that are not yet ready for investment, while identifying where preparatory work or institutional reforms are needed before capital can be committed.
The wider African policy objective is to make regional electricity markets more effective and improve access to reliable, affordable power. East Africa’s updated plan is an enabling step towards that ambition. The next questions concern the resulting investment priorities, their financing and the timetable for implementation.
Sources: Original reporting.
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